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WSUD guidance for developers

01/06/2017

The City of Moreland developed a range of resources aimed at educating their developing community about stormwater management and Water sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) in order to achieve better stormwater management planning responses.

Background

Moreland’s Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) policy was introduced into the Moreland Planning Scheme in November 2015. In addition to other environmental requirements, this policy requires best practice on-site stormwater management for residential developments greater than one single dwelling and non-residential developments greater than 100sqm. Whilst Moreland required this for larger developments before the policy was introduced, after November 2015, all developers were required to provide best practice responses.

It soon became evident to the Moreland ESD team that the development community was struggling with the new requirements. The City of Moreland therefore prepared a range of educational materials to the development community in:

  • understanding what information is required to be submitted to Council to satisfy the ESD policy requirements,
  • knowing how to prepare an acceptable stormwater management  response, and
  • learning about the fundamental principles of stormwater management and ways to utilise stormwater. 

Resources - available on the planning area of the Moreland website

  • The resource pack contains a WSUD treatment hierarchy (based on ease of maintenance and installation, co-benefits and stormwater treatment), which requires developers to explore rainwater harvesting tanks as the first option, raingardens at the second option, and so forth.  
  • Real-life examples were also prepared to demonstrate how a WSUD response should be lodged to Council for review. This includes various development scenarios, including a typical development involving multiple townhouses, a multi-storey apartment building and a large residential subdivision.